A miscellany like Grandma’s attic in Taunton, MA or Mission Street's Thrift Town in San Francisco or a Council, ID yard sale in cloudy mid April or a celestial roadmap no one folded—you take your pick.

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Sleepless City

Sleepless City

Nobody sleeps out in the
sky. Nobody, nobody.

Nobody sleeps.

Moon creatures sniff and
prowl their shacks.

Live iguanas will come to
bite the men who don’t dream

and whoever flees with a
broken heart will meet at the corner

the unbelievable still
crocodile under the tender protest of stars.

Nobody sleeps out in the
world. Nobody, nobody.

Nobody sleeps.

There’s a dead man in the
farthest cemetery

who moans to himself for
three years

because he’s got an arid
landscape in his knee;

and the boy they buried
this morning was crying so

they had to call the dogs
to quiet him.

Life isn’t a dream. Look
out! Look out! Look out!

We climb to the snow’s
edge with the choir of dead dahlias.

But there’s neither
oblivion nor dreams:

living flesh. Kisses bind
mouths

in a tangle of fresh veins

and he who regrets his
hurt will hurt without rest

and he who fears death
will carry it on his shoulders.

One day

the horses will live in
the bars

and the raging ants

will attack the yellow
skies that take shelter in the eyes of cows.

Another day

we'll see the ressurection
of the mounted butterflies

and still walking through
a landscape of gray sponges and mute ships

where we’ll see our ring
shine and roses flow from our tongue.

Look out! Look out! Look
out!

Those who still carry the
marks of claws and cloudbursts,

that boy who cries because
he doesn’t know about the invention of bridges,

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE

All original text, music & pictures are licensed under a Creative Commons license. Please feel free to use them (not for profit) as long as you acknowledge the source & make them available under similar "share-alike" terms. This includes all works by John Hayes, Eberle Umbach (including original works by The Alice in Wonder Band, Five & Dime Jazz & The Bijou Orchestrette), Audrey Bilger, Brittany Newmark, L.E. Leone, Barbie Dockstader Angell, Nancy Krygowski, Carmen Leone, Mairi Graham-Shaw, AK Barkley, John Hayes, Sr., Sheila Graham-Smith & any other original work as may appear here down the line (we're hoping!)